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I am embarrassed by the industry. How many of our generation's best and brightest minds are doing crypto and day trading? Imagine if these minds were focused

I am embarrassed by the industry. How many of our generation's best and brightest minds are doing crypto and day trading? Imagine if these minds were focused on societal problems -- energy, health, food. I know multiple Harvard CS graduates who went right into the crypto space. What a waste.

fasteddie31003 6y ago
Think of the crypto programmer who make it possible for poor Venezuelans to have an island of crypto inflation stability when their Bolívars are worth toilet paper. I don't know of any feel goody NGO where a Harvard grad could feel woke working at that could do that.
- MrMan 6y ago
  But is maybe the only inflation story anyone can come up with? Venezuela is misgoverned, but how do I know bitcoin governance is better? Bitcoin exchange rates are not stable. I can only hoard it, it's not an investment and not a currency.
  - charcircuit 6y ago
    He never said BTC. Bitcoin was not designed to be a stable currency. If you want a stable currency look at stable coins such as DAI, USDT, USDC, etc.
    - therealdrag0 6y ago
      Yet those are never in the MSM. It seems like the only reason we talk about crypto is because BC is in the news. If it wasn’t BC triggering the news maybe we could have more interesting crypto discussions.
  - kobalsky 6y ago
    > but how do I know bitcoin governance is better? if you live in an affected country you may ponder about this while you see your money evaporate in front of your eyes. or you can buy BTC to get your money in an exchange and distribute it into stable coins. yes, one may implode, right now our national currency has imploded, whatever their governances are doing it's better.
- woeirua 6y ago
  This is a pretty weak argument. Venezuelans are using physical USD on the black market to get around their weak currency. At the end of the day, crypto is only helping the wealthy in Venezuela.
bl557 6y ago
Watch this video before you jump to any conclusions - https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1357757736394444800 https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1357757736394444800
svet_0 6y ago
Yeah who cares about financial systems, we should all just optimize wheat strains and build fusion reactors. So embarrassing.
capableweb 6y ago
Says the "Product Manager at a mid size fortune 500 tech company", how much of your day consists on focusing 100% on societal problems really? Besides shitting on other peoples choices, why don't you try to reach out to the graduates and ask them why they work in the cryptocurrency space? Most of the people I know, including myself, have "improving the world" as the reason for working on cryptocurrencies. Even though you might not agree with that, you have to understand people see things differently in the world, and what you see as "the most important issues" is not often the same as what other people see as important. What's even more important is to not shit on what others chose to spend their time on. Instead, be quiet and work on your stuff that is sooooo important and will solve everything with humanity.
- loceng 6y ago
  Do you not see the pitfalls of the MLM structure of Bitcoin, along with the "army of HODLers" who are financially incentivized to speak positively and promote Bitcoin? Consensus through profit, financial incentive, is lazy - and arguably greedy - vs. doing the actual work of building real trust, and aligning people through real trust and relationship, community building; there is an argument that Bitcoin is required as a bridge, an impetus, to force democratically elected governments to do better - however they now have to fight the regulatory capture that Bitcoin will cause for its own benefit to further society-wide, global adoption to help realize the earlier adopters' unnecessary and unreasonable profits.
  - usehackernews 6y ago
    Your naivety of bitcoin use cases is very stuck in the Silicon Valley perspective. Not everyone has ways to store their money, earn interest on money, and receive loan opportunities. Bitcoins accessibility to people without banks is an extremely valuable asset to the world. This is at least 30% of the world population.
    - loceng 6y ago
      Do you realize you didn't counter any of my arguments, along with assuming I'm naive on the topic? Perhaps you [and everyone else] should also be required to divulge if you/they have financial interest in Bitcoin whenever communicating about it.
loceng 6y ago
The VC-finance industrial complex is a problem, Bitcoin being the next MLM scheme they're trying to profit from by taking advantage of the broader undereducated society.
kiliantics 6y ago
We have been cornered into nihilism. We've been shown that any attempts at making positive change in society will be crushed by entrenched power -- e.g. Bernie Sanders, climate movement, etc. So might as well just make a quick buck instead.
asah 6y ago
meh. Same for missiles, ads, porn and crappy derivative Netflix cooking shows. So what.
tofuahdude 6y ago
Every time something significant happens in crypto, someone who thinks they know how people/society should spend their time comes in and makes this asinine comment.
vzcx 6y ago
I see Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as part of a larger movement that's looking for an "exit" from institutions like, well, Harvard. I think the building of those alternatives is actually rather important, given how poorly these well established institutions seem to be at solving problems, including the ones you list.
eecks 6y ago
Are we to believe harvard CS grads are better than other CS grads?

fasteddie31003 6y ago

Think of the crypto programmer who make it possible for poor Venezuelans to have an island of crypto inflation stability when their Bolívars are worth toilet paper. I don't know of any feel goody NGO where a Harvard grad could feel woke working at that could do that.

MrMan 6y ago
But is maybe the only inflation story anyone can come up with? Venezuela is misgoverned, but how do I know bitcoin governance is better? Bitcoin exchange rates are not stable. I can only hoard it, it's not an investment and not a currency.
- charcircuit 6y ago
  He never said BTC. Bitcoin was not designed to be a stable currency. If you want a stable currency look at stable coins such as DAI, USDT, USDC, etc.
  - therealdrag0 6y ago
    Yet those are never in the MSM. It seems like the only reason we talk about crypto is because BC is in the news. If it wasn’t BC triggering the news maybe we could have more interesting crypto discussions.
- kobalsky 6y ago
  > but how do I know bitcoin governance is better? if you live in an affected country you may ponder about this while you see your money evaporate in front of your eyes. or you can buy BTC to get your money in an exchange and distribute it into stable coins. yes, one may implode, right now our national currency has imploded, whatever their governances are doing it's better.
woeirua 6y ago
This is a pretty weak argument. Venezuelans are using physical USD on the black market to get around their weak currency. At the end of the day, crypto is only helping the wealthy in Venezuela.

bl557 6y ago

Watch this video before you jump to any conclusions - https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1357757736394444800 https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1357757736394444800

svet_0 6y ago

Yeah who cares about financial systems, we should all just optimize wheat strains and build fusion reactors. So embarrassing.

capableweb 6y ago

Says the "Product Manager at a mid size fortune 500 tech company", how much of your day consists on focusing 100% on societal problems really? Besides shitting on other peoples choices, why don't you try to reach out to the graduates and ask them why they work in the cryptocurrency space? Most of the people I know, including myself, have "improving the world" as the reason for working on cryptocurrencies. Even though you might not agree with that, you have to understand people see things differently in the world, and what you see as "the most important issues" is not often the same as what other people see as important. What's even more important is to not shit on what others chose to spend their time on. Instead, be quiet and work on your stuff that is sooooo important and will solve everything with humanity.

loceng 6y ago
Do you not see the pitfalls of the MLM structure of Bitcoin, along with the "army of HODLers" who are financially incentivized to speak positively and promote Bitcoin? Consensus through profit, financial incentive, is lazy - and arguably greedy - vs. doing the actual work of building real trust, and aligning people through real trust and relationship, community building; there is an argument that Bitcoin is required as a bridge, an impetus, to force democratically elected governments to do better - however they now have to fight the regulatory capture that Bitcoin will cause for its own benefit to further society-wide, global adoption to help realize the earlier adopters' unnecessary and unreasonable profits.
- usehackernews 6y ago
  Your naivety of bitcoin use cases is very stuck in the Silicon Valley perspective. Not everyone has ways to store their money, earn interest on money, and receive loan opportunities. Bitcoins accessibility to people without banks is an extremely valuable asset to the world. This is at least 30% of the world population.
  - loceng 6y ago
    Do you realize you didn't counter any of my arguments, along with assuming I'm naive on the topic? Perhaps you [and everyone else] should also be required to divulge if you/they have financial interest in Bitcoin whenever communicating about it.

loceng 6y ago

The VC-finance industrial complex is a problem, Bitcoin being the next MLM scheme they're trying to profit from by taking advantage of the broader undereducated society.

kiliantics 6y ago

We have been cornered into nihilism. We've been shown that any attempts at making positive change in society will be crushed by entrenched power -- e.g. Bernie Sanders, climate movement, etc. So might as well just make a quick buck instead.

asah 6y ago

meh. Same for missiles, ads, porn and crappy derivative Netflix cooking shows. So what.

tofuahdude 6y ago

Every time something significant happens in crypto, someone who thinks they know how people/society should spend their time comes in and makes this asinine comment.

vzcx 6y ago

I see Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as part of a larger movement that's looking for an "exit" from institutions like, well, Harvard. I think the building of those alternatives is actually rather important, given how poorly these well established institutions seem to be at solving problems, including the ones you list.

eecks 6y ago

Are we to believe harvard CS grads are better than other CS grads?